Cirkus Xanti

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CIRKUS XANTI is a Norwegian non-profit project company for creation, production and presentation of contemporary circus. Cirkus Xanti is the owner and producer of The Circus Village, a mobile circus center and festival.

As a concept Cirkus Xanti started with the big top creation and touring of the performance Ringen and the social circus project Sirkus Cirka in 2001 in collaboration with Haugesund Teater (Ringen & Sirkus Cirka) and Pain Solution (Ringen). Ringen was the first large scale contemporary circus performance in Norway and was met by great reviews and enthusiasm in all the main newspapers in Norway.

Founder and artistic director of Cirkus Xanti, Sverre Waage, has created over 80 performances since 1977, spread over a range of every thinkable performance genre. In total he has created 16 circus performances from 1982-2014. His first circus performances dates back to 1982, mainly street circus, site specific and new circus. Then also as a performer under the name of Xanti Schwartz as an homage to Bauhaus Theater’s ”Circus” from 1924 by Xanti Schawinsky).

Sverre Waage official opened the regional theatre Haugesund Teater in 1987 with the creation and presentation of the new circus performance Tivoli. In 2006 his circus-theatre creation Trollprinsen, produced by Det Norske Teatret in 2004 and 2005, won the Norwegian Theatre Guild’s prize, Hedda, for best performance for a young audience.

After many years of struggling for recognition of circus as contemporary performing art, Cirkus Xanti finally got support from the Arts Council of Norway in 2009 to develop contemporary circus production and presentation through the project The Circus Village.

Two three-year grants, 2009-11 and 2012-2014, made Cirkus Xanti able to create and produce the unique mobile circus center and festival now consisting of six circus tents, four of them for production and presentation.
Since 2007 Cirkus Xanti has created, produced and toured in big tops in Norway the performances: Trollringen (2007), CircusCabaret (2007), Vintersol (2007), Sirkus Cirka (2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014), Loop (2010), Bastard (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014) and Pluto Crazy (2012, 2013).